Feds arrest DoD techie, claim he dumped top secret files in park for foreign spies to find A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) IT specialist is scheduled to appear in court today after being caught by the FBI trying to surreptitiously drop top secret information to a foreign government in a public park. Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 28, of Alexandria, Virginia, was the subject of an FBI investigation after law enforcers …
Even if it wasn't stuff they already had if a spy approaches you it is probably better to refuse their entreaties and snitch on them. If it isn't a source you've developed yourself you can't have any confidence it isn't a trap or they aren't trying to feed you false information. Yeah you'd hope allies wouldn't do that but even allies probably have systems in place to "check up" on each other. "Trust but verify" and all that..
“He knew he was smarter.”
WE ALL think we are smarter. Ayn Rand invented this crazy notion that it was possible to think from a purely objective standpoint, she called it Objectivism. It was always hogwash, nevertheless, we all secretly believe in it.
The day we can honestly admit that our viewpoint is always partially Subjective, that we are subject to countless biases and preconceived notions and prejudices, is the day we awaken to our own flawed and mistaken tendencies.
Some mistakes have very big consequences!
The published histories of spycraft and spying disagree with you.
History is littered with examples of people approaching foreign intelligence services and being run as sources/spies and they are the ones who were caught and publicly exposed, I guarantee there will be a significant number of others who were either caught and used to feed false information or just never caught.
Over the last few years the USA has demonstrated that anyone who thinks they're allies is sorely mistaken
As Kissenger reputedly said "The USA has interests, not allies"
As we observed during Covid and since January this year, The relationship as far as the USA is concerned is "vassals". It didn't hapen overnight but once the Orange Menace said the quiet bits out loud a lot of past incidents and behaviour make more sense to the rest of the world
Not necessarily true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Tolkachev
Soviet radar engineer approaches Moscow US embassy staff, repeatedly. At first ignored for just your reasons, turned out a gold mine.
He should have just walked into an embassy. Much less risky than broadcasting his intents to unknown parties. Depending on what he'd communicate, remember that a number of NATO countries were shown to be getting spied on by the US by Wikileaks so might have been receptive.
Even in the case of "friendly countries", it seems drastic to move from antipathy to Trump to betraying one's country. At least at this point in time.
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," but the "friends" who could easily become or aid/abet enemies (i.e.: insider threats) get watched closest.
It does not matter what you think of the current administration and/or its policies -- you do not violate your lifetime NDA with the US Government.
(It's too rich that the suspect who worked in the Insider Threat Division himself became an insider threat. You would think he knew better, knowing how closely others were being watched, therefore he was being watched also.)
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...instead of arresting him why didn't they bring him in for a very pointy conversation about him possibly sharing a cell with an amorous Bubba for some years, and instead fix him up to make some real drops with interested parties with information that was total bollocks? We know what your qualifications are so let's discuss your new role here... (Alternatively, given the current regrettable situation, we just pardon you and make you Secretary of State - p.s. your new role includes helping El Douche take the crayons out of his nose every day).
Smarter person would have made sure to have had leverage / dead man switch, the sort that might have made the govt decide to back off rather than kill....
However billionaires owning the media and kowtowing to the administration, alongside a populace brainwashed by 30+ years of heavily biased and partisan media output means that route has been cut off.
Watergate wouldn't have gone anywhere now and it shows how far things have fallen that Watergate would seem like no big deal now.....
"his ideal outcome would be to receive citizenship from this foreign government"
Now this has me wondering: His motives are probably not financial because he already lives in one of the better economies. Maybe political, but then even in spite of current management, the USA is also one of the most tolerant environments for alternate ideologies. Some other loyalty? Not likely, as that is something that counterintelligence watches very closely when handing out TS clearances. As an aquaintance who is in the cointel biz told me once, "We are not going to let another Jonathan Pollard slip by."
>the most tolerant environments for alternate ideologies
Sure, excepting anyone to the left of Eisenhower.
Like, if you have seen the efficiency of local law enforcement in busting an anarchist cooking class (as in literal cooking for self sufficiency off the land) you might be find the comparison "like a piranha through chum" fitting.
A friend of mine was picked up in such a situation. They dragged me out of work (which almost got me fired) because I was in his contacts and attempted to leverage me against him to develop him as a witness against the greybeard pacifist running the class. I had my traffic tickets be inflated into a pattern of reckless driving, which at the time my 20 year old ass didn't know they couldn't charge me with.
I caved and told them of my buddy's suspension in school for fighting his bully... Lol.
Not proud of that but when you're a nerdy little fuck knowing you won't survive in county jail where they throw you in with convicts in transfer for serious offenses the pressure tactics work.
All that effort over busting people for wrong think when there were homicides unsolved in that town made me really reconsider how much esteem I gave the boys in blue.
Florida Poly is actually pretty good. The main problem is that it's in Lakeland, also known as Cowtown North, there being a _lot_ of cattle in the immediate area. It's in central Florida, and has all the woes of central Florida. (Rednecks. Military from McDill and other sites nearby. Rednecks. Disney/other theme park refugees. Did I mention the rednecks? Just making sure.) It's too far away from the Atlantic to get any overflow from the Space Coast (NASA, Patrick Space Force Base, etc.) and too far away from the Gulf Coast to get much overflow from Tampa/St. Pete/Sarasota. The main businesses in Lakeland are cattle, Publix Supermarkets (Publix HQ is in Lakeland; Publix actually has good security, someone once tried to ransomware them, they told the ransomware guys to sod off and fixed things in a under 72 hours) and colleges and universities, of which Florida Poly is one. (Apparently, Publix hired a bunch of Florida Poly guys to run their corporate network, and it was the Florida Poly guys who saw off the ransomware attack.)
As for Ron DeSatan... no one's paying attention to him anymore. His wife might be running for the governorship, as he's term-limited, but she's got major problems and may just softly-silently fade away.
Why on Earth would I want you to be a citizen of my nation when your offer proves you aren't to be trusted? If you'll sell your own people out over something as temporary as a 4 year leader, and the price is something as small as citizenship, you'll sell an adopted nation out over a parking ticket. I can understand spying for your own country but spying against your country? I'll not tolerate a traitor.
It's not like he suggested becoming an employee of their secret services. I think we have very different concepts of treachery. I do not owe my country loyalty. I am loyal to things I find moral, some of which, such as democracy and human rights, my country represents. If they stopped doing those things, my loyalty to them has expired utterly as they have violated it first. Therefore, I don't expect someone wishing to become a citizen of my country to show it any more than that. They wish to live there, pay taxes there, vote there, and be subject to its laws. If they meet the conditions for citizenship, how fervently they love the country is irrelevant to me.
Your comment reminds me of a book set in World War II which always confused me when I first read it as a child. A Nazi spy ring in the UK, planning to assist a German invasion, was successfully defused by the British counterspies. One of them described their feelings toward the German members of the ring as respect for their daring, while their view of the British members was contempt for their treachery. To me, both groups would be equally despicable for supporting the Nazis. Had there been a similar ring in Germany, the Germans doing whatever they could to unseat Hitler would be equally admirable as the foreigners helping to do it, and I would find their treachery to their country commendable and honorable.
This isn't very important to how I'd consider this guy's attempt to spy. If I were a country in receipt of that message, probably the only considerations would be how much I wanted whatever information he had access to and whether I trusted he would actually provide it. From the description, the country wasn't named but was probably an ally of the US, so it probably had little interest in the information. This suggests the aspiring spy wasn't very good at his job, since a core part of spying is finding out what information someone cares enough about to compensate you for getting it, and adversaries are much more likely to want something than allies. If I had access to all the US information and I wanted to spy for the UK, I'd have to be very selective to find things the UK would care enough about to risk diplomatic consequences from the US over, but China would probably want plenty of things and therefore be easier to negotiate with. Of course, the choice to approach an ally may suggest that the aspiring spy has political preferences in what countries he's willing to work for, but it's hard to be a successful spy that way.
"From the description, the country wasn't named but was probably an ally of the US, so it probably had little interest in the information"
Some "allies" are more trustworthy than others. There's Russian-leaning nations in Nato, there's pretty much no love lost between France and the US, how far would either Russia or the US trust Turkey...etc etc. So entirely feasible that nominal allies spy on each other. From the "ally" nation's point of view, they'd need to consider if this were an effort to feed them duff or even real intel to test their spy agencies or political loyalty to the US, or to try and check suspected leaks through the ally, to create a "communication route" for some future nefarious purpose etc etc. I assume spycraft is always a hall of mirrors, where you have to suspect everything of everybody.
In terms of "why would "ally" want to offer citizenship to a turncoat, surely that's not even a valid question. Offering citizenship is cheap from a spy agencies perspective, they're not going to trust such a person with their own nation's security. What risks or costs did Russia take sheltering Snowden? Even if he got inconvenient, he can be disposed of or deported easily enough (and he's probably kacking his pants now given how the Orange Felon seems to be taking his orders from Moscow).
Nah - Putin plays the long game, trump still has too much independence and is too chaotic to solely rely on.
Snowden understands how the Americans work and the Russians know there is far more still in his head that could be extracted if they need it and under whatever form of duress they think would work best.
Snowden likely has a lot still held back and has stayed several steps ahead of the us govt for years on end now, if the us govt could have killed him by now they WOULD have killed him.
Sheltering snowden also allows Putin to needle the USA and point to the information leaked by Snowden as an example of American malfeasance and duplicity
Snowden serves many more purposes alive and under russian "protection"
Play safer, and if it has an extremely valuable worth, deal in and reveal currently unknown unknowns and more than just likely to be future classified top secret information [TS/SCI], for then is such a unique proprietary private intelligence product which A.N.Others cannot claim and prove to be exclusively theirs ....... although they sure as hell are likely to ignore the 10th Commandment with particular and peculiar regarding to its impact and effect.
The FBI and other intelligence groups are being looked at more seriously. When misbehaviour is encouraged such as leaking and rule breaking then that will happen.
I hear there is a surprising discovery in the sentinel database of a level of access that not only locks a file (requiring higher permission to view it) but also hides it from search queries called “Prohibited Access.”. Questions are now being asked if this is used to avoid providing legally requested information.
@ChodeMonkey
"There appears to be no mention of or questions pertaining to Sentinel access. Could you be a dear and share them?"
Look to the end of page 3, page 4, and page 5 of the document. Or did you not look at the document itself? Here is a link in case you need it-
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/nellie_ohr_fbi_analysis.pdf
If you need a simplified read of the problem-
https://thefederalist.com/2025/06/02/latest-fbi-revelations-show-the-mueller-special-counsel-was-a-cover-up-and-much-more/
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